


Minor Characters Project: Starsky and Hutch

by Verlaine



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Episode: s01e02 Savage Sunday, Episode: s01e03 Texas Longhorn, Episode: s01e04 Death Ride | Hellride, Episode: s01e05 Snowstorm, Episode: s01e06 The Fix, Episode: s01e07 Death Notice, Episode: s01e08 Pariah | What Do You Do When Justice Fails, Episode: s10e01 The Pilot, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2019-10-06 04:24:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17338544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verlaine/pseuds/Verlaine
Summary: What do the minor characters of a series have to say about it?





	1. The Pilot — Frankie

**Author's Note:**

> This project will eventually include a chapter from the POV of a minor character in each episode of Starsky and Hutch. The rules: POV minor characters only, exactly 500 words, episodes in DVD order.
> 
> My thanks to Dawnebeth for beta and advice.

You can learn a lot about what a guy's made of by watching him at the gym. I get all kinds here: the ones who want to build up their physique to impress a hot chick, the ones who think adding some muscle will let them throw their weight around, the ones who figure working out will add a few years to their lives. 

A gym can be a bit like church: people come here because they need something they aren't getting any place else. My job is to help them find it and not get too nosey about why they want it. Better my head in the sand than my tail in a sling, that's what I say. But I have to admit, some of them make me curious.

Take Ken Hutchinson, and his friend Starsky. Night and day, those two. Hutch is the one with the membership and he shows up—well, I can't say regular as clockwork, because he doesn't seem to have any kind of a schedule, but he's dedicated. A couple weeks he might be here afternoons, then for a while early in the mornings, then late at nights just before I close. He's on some kind of shift work, but whatever it is, it's not steady. A few times he didn't show for a while, and I started to wonder if maybe he'd moved, or decided to pack it in. But he always turned up eventually. 

I think one reason he works at keeping in shape is because what he does is dangerous. I've seen him under the shower a few times with bruises and cuts—the kind you get from a knock-down, drag-out, bare knuckle fight, not the kind in a ring with gloves and a referee. Probably why he spends a lot of time on the heavy bag. With his long, skinny build, he's better made for running than fighting, but he makes up for it with discipline and technique.

His buddy Starsky drops by all the time with coffee and pastries, or a candy bar; you'd think a guy who ate that kind of crap would weight three hundred pounds and be popping Tums like they were going out of style. But no. I've seen him in shorts and a t-shirt, and it looks like he's doing something right. Broad shoulders and good arms, decent core muscles, reflexes like a cat. A natural tough guy, that's Starsky. A little less chili and a little more soybean loaf, and he'd be in great shape.

Starsky likes to rag Hutch about spending time and money at the gym, and Hutch gives Starsky grief about his eating habits, but neither of them sounds serious about it. It's like an old married couple nagging each other about stuff that might have mattered years ago, but now it's code for, "we're a team". 

Maybe more than just a team, but that's not my business either. You two know what you're doing, that's good enough for me.


	2. Savage Sunday – Sally Ann

My new shrink said I should keep a journal. It's not a "dear diary" kind of thing though, it's serious: I'm supposed to write down my questions and ideas and things that bother me, so I don't let them all get bottled up inside. Now I preferred the way my old shrink, using the Socratic method, got me to think things through by asking questions and talking it out, because really, talking is a lot easier than writing. But anyway, here goes.

Today two cops came to the club where I dance to ask about my ex, Wilbur. Now I don't usually like talking to the fuzz, but those two were so cute I just couldn't help it. One blond and one dark, and both of them really nice-looking and polite. And they were interested in what I had to say too, unlike Wilbur, who on top of being a sports freak who didn't really dig getting it on, also wasn't the greatest when it came to the relationship scene. I sometimes wondered if he and Greg weren't maybe a little too close, if you understand what I mean, not that there's anything wrong with that, but still—when it starts to make a girl question her self-esteem, that's going too far.

When me and Teddy came out here from Denver, I thought we'd really be able to start a new life, and I'd have a chance to make something of my career instead of, you know, just marking time because I kept having to pay off Wilbur's bookies. But then Wilbur and Greg followed us out here, and they just went right back to doing what they do best: gambling on sports, listening to rock music, and failing at holding up liquor stores. I told my shrink about it when they first got here, and he said they were probably trying to compensate for their own issues, and I shouldn't take any of it personally because none of it was about me.

So that made me feel a lot better.

I was working all day, so I didn't hear about it until this evening, but there was a big bomb scare in town today. The cops were all over the radio telling people to watch out for a green Ford with dynamite in it! Can you believe it? And then it turns out that those two mental giants, Wilbur and Greg, stole the car and used it for a robbery. The radio said the two cute cops I saw chased them all over town and finally caught them just before that dynamite blew up the Music Pavilion.

I suppose I should feel bad that me talking to the heat got Wilbur and Greg arrested, but at least they'll be out of my hair for a long time. And you know what? My shrink says I need to take care of myself first or I'll never be able to take care of anyone else, and I think he's totally right.


	3. Death Ride - Linda Williams

Paris is lovely this time of the year.

Right now I'm sitting out on our little balcony, sharing a glass of red wine and a nice Brie with Joanne, watching the sun go down over the rooftops. We've got the cutest little apartment in an old building just a few blocks from the Seine, with a great view and a bakery right across the street where we can buy fresh croissants every morning. 

We've got it all worked out. In a few weeks, Joanne will tell her father that those goons trying to kidnap her in the hospital made her so nervous she can't face living alone and wants a full-time bodyguard. I'll say the money's too good to pass up, and hand in my resignation to the SFPD. Mello will have testified by then, so the heat will be off, and with any luck we'll just quietly slip out of sight here in France.

Joanne has plenty of money from her father, and she's planning to open a quality dress boutique, so we won't have to worry about starving. At first I didn't feel right, knowing where the money comes from, but Joanne says women have to look after themselves because nobody's going to look after us. If her father had really cared about his family, he wouldn't have gone into the rackets in the first place. She says I should look at it as us using his money to give ourselves a chance we'd never have had otherwise.

One thing I won't be trying again is acting. I was so stiff and awkward during that road trip with Starsky and Hutch I nearly messed everything up. I was lucky neither of them tried to put the moves on me; it would have been embarrassing no matter how I turned them down. And I couldn't have gone along with any funny business, not with Joanne waiting and worrying about me.

I just hated having to play the spoiled little rich girl with them. It isn't me, and it's not Joanne either. I kept feeling I was letting her down by acting so helpless. But we'd decided in advance that if my escorts thought I was a little dumb and useless they wouldn't bother to ask me any hard questions. It was a struggle to keep up the act when the goons were shooting at us, though. I kept grabbing my purse back from Hutch because my gun was tucked down in the bottom, and I wanted to have it where I could get at it fast. 

The SFPD trained me well. I'd figured out before we even got to Bay City the leak was in Dobey's office. And I didn't trust any of them to make sure Joanne would be safe. None of _them_ cared enough to get between her and the bullet.

That's the only bad thing about not going back. I really enjoyed being a cop.

But not as much as I enjoy being Joanne Mello's girlfriend.


	4. Texas Longhorn - The Angel

Yeah, yeah, I hear you. See you, too. Trouble comin' to my door every day and twice on Sunday. Just enough smack in my veins I don't care much now. 

Don't be lookin' at me like that, white bread. Was a day when you'd have been happy to get a smile from The Angel. Oh, yeah. Fifteen years, baby. I would've stopped your clock.

_A long way from home . . ._

Naw, that's all gone now. Should burn those old pictures. Nothin' left but memories, and those don't buy me any smack, do they? Don't pity me, honey. I had good years. I made some bad choices, but in the good years I filled the cup and I drank it down to the last drop. 

So what you want with The Angel? 

Another rape, another murder. There were half a dozen on this block alone in the last couple months. Why should I care some rich white gal got herself killed? Ridin' around in a fancy Cadillac car, wearin' a necklace worth more than some people make in a year—what was she thinkin' would happen? So many folks without any way to get from one day to the next, not just us junkies.

Why should I help the police force? All of us down here just one step away from the end of the line anyway. You want me to make it easier to take a couple of brothers down? I need a better reason than just Huggy Bear's say-so.

Awful young though, even if she was married. Little bitty blonde thing, she never stood a chance. They must've hurt her so bad before she died. Lemme tell you, I know what it's like. I've been on the road alone too, and men thinkin' they had a right to me just 'cause I was there and they felt like it. Nobody to help me, nobody to hear me cryin' to the Lord . . .

Poor little girl. All alone out on the road in the dark.

I'll tell you what you wanna know. You watch out for the devil in those two. Brown bread, he just a regular hype, sold his soul to the needle and goin' down fast. But white bread, with the tattoos? He don't fear God or man. For him, the sunset is coming, and he wants to watch the world burn while the sun goes down. When you catch him, he'll try and take you out first.

Sunset's coming.

_A long way from home . . ._

You wanna watch that man of hers. He'll be hurtin' and he'll be raging. He'll feel hollow inside, with nothing but pain left to fill him up. Might be he takes it out on himself, might be he hits out at somebody else. Man loses his woman that way, it curdles his soul. My granddaddy was never right . . .

Poor baby girl. Nobody to help her.

_A long way from home . . ._


	5. The Fix - Allan "Monk" Philos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More thanks to Downwind for beta and advice.

It's the broads that'll do it to you, every time.

That Jeannie Walton, she messed up every man that took a second look at her. Ben Forest, Coney, hell, that poor slob Hutchinson.

You know, I almost felt sorry for Hutchinson. Jeannie had him wound around her little finger but good. Wouldn't talk until we had him so strung out he didn't know up from down. He wrecked his career and his life, and for what? Not like Jeannie's giving him the time of day unless he's got something she can use.

I warned Ben to forget about her. Just throw her back in the gutter she came from and find somebody else. But no, she made him crazy enough about her he stopped thinking straight. Sure, she was a looker. But I coulda gone into any casino in Vegas and found a girl for him with all her looks and half the hang-ups.

Now I owe Ben a lot. I was a snot-nosed half-Greek punk, going nowhere fast on my way to a life of nickel and dime busts. He gave me a job and taught me how to do it right. I watched him to learn about the good life: order the best food and wine in a restaurant, wear top-dollar suits, tie a necktie. I got money in the bank, a real nice short, a house of my own—better than my dad did working all his life loading the grocery trucks. 

But on the other hand, it was Ben gave me that nickname—Monk. He'd say it with a little twist to his mouth, like just because my brain isn't under my belt buckle, I didn't have a dick at all. It's not that I don't like women; they're okay. But once you use your dick to think, you might as well use your brain to piss. Goddamn Ben made it into a joke, and everybody got a good laugh out of it. And then I had to work twice as hard to make my bones. 

I told Ben to let Jeannie go, and he said I was dumb. I told him messing with a cop was gonna bring trouble, and he acted like I was turning faggot on him. The harder I tried to make him see sense, the crazier he got. He was ready to burn everything down if he couldn't have her, and take us all with him. 

Ben didn't just go after Hutchinson because he wanted to find Jeannie and get her back. No, Ben wanted him to _hurt_. He couldn't stand the idea of another man having his hands on her, of her feeling something for anybody but him. If the stupid broad had any brains, she'd have acted like Hutchinson was just another fling. When she said she'd be whatever Ben wanted as long as he let the cop go, she guaranteed he'd get wasted. Ben was that nuts.

And all because of a broad. I just don't get it.


	6. Snowstorm - Kalowitz

A million dollars in cocaine ripped off. My God, who'd believe it? 

Even split three ways, it would still have come to three hundred and thirty-three thousand each. I could've paid off my mortgage. Caught up on my back alimony and child support. Taken a real sweet vacation in Mexico with my new girl.

But no. Corman and Burke double-crossed me. Kept everything on the down-low. If they'd cut me in, I could've figured out how to get rid of Crandell without blowing everything wide open. They never said word one. And there I was defending them to the brass, while they were gypping me out of the deal of a lifetime.

On the other hand, maybe I got lucky. Corman's dead, and Burke's going to do heavy time, if he lives that long. Stryker may be in jail, but he's got connections everywhere, and he can't afford to let anybody think it's a good idea to rip him off. Wouldn't surprise me if Burke has an "accident" in the shower some day.

At least I can honestly tell IA I didn't have a clue until Starsky and Hutch brought Corman and Burke and the drugs back in.

You know what's a gas? Starsky and Hutch ran themselves ragged trying to prove we didn't take the coke, because we were long-time cops with families and a lot more to lose. They put themselves on the line going up against Stryker because they figured they had to make it right for us. And all the time Corman and Burke were laughing up their sleeves, sitting there with all that money waiting for them. If those two had any brains, they'd have framed Starsky and Hutch for the whole thing, instead of just waiting it out.

It wouldn't have been that hard. Starsky and Hutch are loose cannons, everybody knows it. They take risks, cut corners, make life hard for their captain. A lot of the brass wouldn't mind seeing them take a fall. Plant some of the blow on their buddy Huggy Bear, spread a few quiet rumors, and—bingo! 

The bitch is, I didn't have anything to do with it, and my career will still be down the shitter. Nobody's said it out loud, but I know what they're all thinking: How could Kalowitz _not_ know? Either I was in on it and just got lucky there was no evidence, or I was too stupid to see what my partners were doing right under my nose. An idiot or a lucky crook. Either way, I'm gonna be poison in the department from now on. Years of partners who can't wait to move on to somebody else, no chance for promotion.

And with the money I owe, I can't even tell them all to shove it. I got no choice but to hang on until I make my thirty, no matter how crappy it gets.

But at least I won't be in jail or dead. How's that for a half-full glass?


	7. Death Notice - Anton Rusz

There are good people everywhere. When I am first coming from the old country, people tell to me, "Be careful in America. You have no family there. Who will help you so far away from home?" But my wife, she says, "Be strong, Anton. We will build family. We will make a new home." So we come. And even if life not easy, she is right.

My own repair shop, a little apartment. No child, but that is as God wills. Magda and I, we have a good life. 

And suddenly she is sick. I try, but it is too much. I must work longer to make more money for the doctor, but I must stay by her to care for her. I try so hard. But there is never enough money, and I am too tired, and make mistakes. 

When she is gone, I lose my heart, I lose everything. So tired. And always afraid: afraid to lose my shop, afraid to be caught by phone company, afraid I be deported.

And then on phone one day I hear the voices talking how the girls must die.

Ach, those girls—like the daughters we could have had. Yes, they take their clothes off for men, and oh, it is a shame. But still, not bad girls. They must pay rent and buy food, just like me, no? My Magda would have brought them borscht and taught them to sew and tried to find husbands for them. Decent men, who would be kind and make respectable homes for them.

I try to warn them, but when I am excited, my English does not go so good, and everything comes out wrong. When Detectives Starsky and Hutchinson arrest me, I think it is all over. Prison, and then back to the old country in disgrace. How will I look my Magda's family in the eye?

But then—a miracle! They believe me about voices on phone. They hunt down the men who kill Ginger and Sonia, and arrest them. And they are kind to me, a man they do not know, a man they thought might be a terrible murderer. I do not understand everything they do, but I think they write the report so nobody knows I am cheating the phone company. Every night now I pray to all the saints for them to be safe.

And the worthy Captain Dobey, his church people make collection and pay for new telephone for shop. Manny and Francine tell their friends I am good repairman, and now I have more work than I can do in a day. 

There is no gold in the streets here, the way some fools back home would say. No gold, but there is work, honest work, and fine people. I am not a young man any more, and my dear Magda waits for me. But while I am alive, I will make the good goulash, and share it with friends, and do my work the best I can.


	8. Pariah - Stewart Tidings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Dawniebeth, Blackbird_Song and m. butterfly for advice and input. It takes a village, ladies.

Let me sit down and catch my breath, sister. It's getting harder carrying a sign these days. I'm eight-two my next birthday, and my legs ain't what they once were. Or my lungs either. But as long as I got breath in this body, when there's a Black Lives Matter protest in this town, I'll be there.

Remember Lonnie Craig. That's my sign, every time. 

You weren't even born when it happened, but I remember like it was yesterday. Lonnie lying there in the alley behind the store, shot dead. Starsky running past him, kicking that gun away from his hand. 

That's the motherfucking irony: it really was a righteous shoot. I've thought about that day a lot over the years, and I still can't honestly say there was any blame to Starsky. Lonnie had a gun, and he'd already used it, not five minutes before. I don't know if he could've shot Starsky then—that child was shaking so bad he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. But he had a gun and he pointed it at a cop. 

And he died. 

Could Starsky have done any different? Maybe he could have tried to talk to Lonnie. Maybe he could have let him run … and maybe Lonnie would have shot some old lady so he could steal her car for a getaway. I don't know. 

Lonnie should have had better friends and a better chance and better judgment. But did that mean he had to die?

What I truly couldn't abide was when Starsky came to Lonnie's mama's house, and made our mourning all about him. At least they should've sent somebody else. His partner, anybody. Never been as proud of a woman in my life as when Eunice pulled her dignity around her like a queen and shook Starsky's hand. Never been as ashamed as when I did the same. But what else could we do? Eunice had two other children. She couldn't risk a white policeman having a grudge against her.

No, I'm not saying Starsky would have made trouble for Eunice if she'd sent him away. Give the man his due, he was honest. Full of white cop's privilege, but honest. Still, I wish we'd dared slam the door in his face and told him to leave us black folks be in our grief.

I changed after that. I started reading: Malcolm X, Baldwin, Reverend King. I wasn't sure what I was looking for, but I knew something had to change. Something. Somehow.

And here we are, forty-five years later, and we're still marching, still writing, still shouting. And our young men still dying in the street.

And that's the other thing that's riled me so all these years. Who but his family even remembers Lonnie Craig now? When he does get mentioned somewhere, it all goes straight on to Prudholm and dead cops and revenge. And Starsky.

Poor Lonnie's been made a footnote in his own life.

And that's why I march.


End file.
